World Colonial

Like other similar period key and semi-key dates, I don't consider the price low for the supply. Last I checked, PCGS had graded over 500 FS MS-66 and there is a huge supply in lower grades, more graded by NGC, and probably far more outside of a holder than in one for all grades except MS-67. This was many years ago, but it was a $100+ coin at the time. Like practically every post 1933 non-commemorative US coin, it's one I expect to sell for less than the grading fee or a nominal premium to silver spot decades from now.

I assume someone like Garrett is actually interested in true collecting, but it's a distant second to the business side. Read his and other articles on Coin Week. The problem is trying to make what is usually actually uninteresting appear interesting. They are still more interested in inflating the price level than actual collecting, and at some point, the cost of buying these coins exceeds the appeal as a collectible which is why it turns into marketing.

Buffalo dollar has a mintage of 500,000 to my recollection, though that may be for both proof and UNC. I presume it's still "popular", but still don't think there are enough collectors for the supply. I don't even remember the National Community Service coin but it's an uninteresting theme to most collectors. It's a coin destined to be lost in obscurity in the future and whatever the mintage, plenty of others since near it or lower. I remember when the 1998 SP half went for a few hundred. I recall it's also collected as part of the series and the prior price was due to an incorrect perception of the "low" mintage. Sure, the mintage is much lower than all other Kennedy halves. It's also still more common than over 99% of all coins ever struck in equivalent quality. It's also from a series overwhelmingly composed of low budget collectors and where it isn't, still mostly bought as a "side collection". It's not an "investor" coin and lacks the appeal for the supply and collectible merits to support the prior price.

I don't remember specific prices but yes, a bubble.

Any good deal is only because of an increase in the spot price or because the market treats it as a bullion coin, which is an accurate description of the coin. I'd rank it one of the worst collectible values of any coin as a collectible. It's really common especially for its price point. Yes, the mintage is "low" (no, 60,000+ is not a low number), but 99% exist "as struck" making it very common for the quality. There are nowhere near enough actual collectors who want it as a collectible anywhere near its price, either now or since 2014.

Another example that most coins are (a lot) more common than is apparent to most.

I agree. Most of this coinage isn't in a TPG holder, even the better stuff though I can't say how much of it exists. Most of it is low grade dreck, as evidenced by the plate coins in my references. The survey data identified a large number of coins cumulatively, though individual dates are mostly low in number. These coins are presumably owned by actual collectors, not dumped in someone's "change jar".

The TPG populations do not support that France has an "above average" preference for TPG. The counts aren't that high and no reason to believe much of it over at least the last two centuries is actually scarce.

My personal inference is that much of the apparent demand for slabbing of world coinage elsewhere is mostly actually from US collectors and where it isn't, driven by marketing to US based collectors. Yes, I know NGC and PCGS have submission centers outside the US. Exceptions are China (probably due to the number of fakes) and South Africa (due to financially motivated buying). I've seen more graded coins on Sixbid (but not that many proportionately) but don't know where the buyers are mostly located.

Apples to oranges comparing DE to Franklin halves. Franklin half is a "collector" coin overwhelmingly owned by moderate budget collectors and also available to some extent in (original) rolls even now. I'd describe it mostly as a bullion coin even though it's not priced as one. It's really common in all but the highest TPG eligible grades or with the FBL attribution. There must be in the vicinity of 10,000 (at least) eligible for an MS-66 for every date. Certainly 10,000s as "gem" or MS-65. No key dates either. No different for most other 1933-1964 US coins and some 1965-1998 too.

What's your definition of "slab worthy"? Is it any coin where the incremental value in a holder exceeds the cost of grading it? Coins above some minimum value? Something else?

I didn't provide a %. The article was written within the last five years (I think) but cannot remember exactly when. Mr. Stack's comment was in a post in reply to Garret's Coin Week Article. Neither of them provided an estimated percent.

Yes, collectors will "overpay" when they have the expectation of getting most of their money back. I would possibly have a different view if I didn't have to work to generate my coin budget. I recently bought two multi-coin Peru pillar lots. Both are probably money losers, but I can live with that. One has the 1766 1R with a mintage of 168200 but I only know of three or four, including mine. Yonaka's plate coin (only one in his survey) and Sellschopp (holed) and/or Patterson had one. Mine looks VG (probably details) but it's actually a decent coin (better than the others) considering the scarcity. It's been cleaned but it isn't holed or otherwise damaged. The other lot has a 1763 1/2R that I grade XF-AU but needs some clean up.

Doug Winter deals in gold, not coins (even US coins) generally. Jeff Garret has stated the same inference in a Coin Week Aritlcle. I'll go with the late Harvey Stack who says the opposite. Since there are far more financially motivated classic US gold buyers and the prices are (much) higher, the proportion in a TPG holder should be (much) higher too.

This is more about demand than supply. Prices are set at the margin and only a very low proportion of the supply for most coins is available for sale at any time or in close proximity. Due to this factor, it's going to take a much higher proportion liquidating their collections or dumping their "change jars" to cause a "collapse", though I do expect a longer-term relative decline/underperformance for most US coinage due to demographic (cultural) reasons. Anyone who buys the most relatively overpriced for the supply coins while knowing anything about what they bought knows these coins aren't even close to scarce.

Not necessarily.

That's because the majority of demand for the series probably comes from non-collectors. Most of the coins are far too common where the actual collector base buying it as a collectible is large enough to support the price level. The most common Morgan dollars are bullion coins and by common, I'm not referring to a specific date/grade combination since there is no practical difference. This is the same reason I have stopped buying coins I used to buy and will unlikely ever expand my interests more than minimally. I'm not interested in sinking unrecoverable funds into coins with limited or poor marketability when I don't even find it interesting, not when it requires a time trade-off. It was one thing 20+ years ago when the coins were nominally priced and I could treat it as a moderate consumption expense but another thing entirely now. An example is that Mexican crown I paid $45 for in 1998. More recently, it's sold for $700 to $1000. (No different for a larger number of currently much lower priced coins.) That's insane. The coin isn't remotely interesting enough and only financialization and marketing explain this price.

Yes, regularly. This is the theme in many of my posts when it comes to prices.

The 31-S is more overpriced for the relative scarcity. It might have gained more value over the last few decades (don't know) but it's selling for less (adjusted for price changes than it did in 1965, noticeably. It's a coin that should be worth a few dollars at most in a grade like MS-63.

In your example of the 1968 proof set, it's going to cost you $19 per coin ($95 for the set) in grading fees, plus $35 return shipping, plus a handling fee of $10, plus whatever it costs you to mail the coins to NGC. That's in the vicinity of $150. You'd probably have to receive minimum grades of "68" as a cameo/ultra cameo to break even or make it worthwhile financially, if that's why you are doing it. This is a really common set and so are the individual coins, even in the highest grades. If you want a graded set, you should buy one already graded and sell the one you have. It will be cheaper, unless you want all the coins as a "68" or "69" with the cameo designation. Maybe then it isn't, maybe.

Same to some extent for Spanish colonial shipwreck coins. In this instance, also glamorizing "pirate treasure", with some of these recoveries from a later period.

There are only a few with actually low mintages. The mintages mostly appear low by (somewhat) contemporary standards. Sure, a few thousand or somewhat above it is low. Tens of thousands such as for the 01-S quarter is not low. 72,000 isn't a small number; it's large. (Try counting it.) Same idea for my primary interest which is from the 18th century. I agree the survival rates are often low and more so in a specific quality. There also aren't that many actual collectors of this coinage, not what I would call actual collectors. The primary difference between "collecting" now and recently versus the earlier periods you cited is almost certainly actually predominantly financially motivated buying for "investment". It's mostly the same as I told you before. Recent collectors in their "sophistication" didn't miraculously discover the merits of this coinage through a collective epiphany. The metal price is a lot higher but prior collectors also didn't care about quality differences reflected in TPG labels. If so many of them somehow thought that 20th century key dates were "scarce" or "rare" (with much) higher mintages, they obviously knew these coins are a lot scarcer. But without financially motivated buying, there weren't enough affluent collectors who cared. The more expensive 20th century "key" dates weren't cheap by 1965. The price differences were just much narrower due to what I am telling you. CC coinage? Yes, all the low(er) mintage coins are a lot more expensive now, not just gold. Look at the Liberty Seated denominations. It's also similar for "C" and "D" gold, somewhat at least. Subjectively, I'd attribute this to more interest in actual collecting, as opposed to simply because of a low mintage and a number on a label. It's the "history" connection.

The overwhelming majority of coins are common or very common. This includes US "key dates" and supposedly ""low mintage" coins. "Low mintage" is almost always only low relatively, not actually low, not when the survival rate is "noticeable". Very few coins have a high enough collector (as opposed to financially motivated buyer) preference to support "high" prices with a "noticeable" supply increase. Look at the most widely collected US 20th century key dates. There are in the vicinity of a dozen. It varies by coin and specific quality but generically, the only reason these coins sell for current and prior prices is due to a reputational scarcity, the perception of scarcity and not an actual one since these coins can be bought in practically any grade in multiple any day of the week. The buyers are mostly willing to pay the current market price under the assumption they can get most of their money back at resale, not because they actually like the coins that much. This is an inference but an obvious one, for any coin of "meaningful" value that can be bought on demand. Someone can also make the same claim for ancients with known hoards (like the Julius Caesar portrait with the Elephant reverse), except that it's my assumption that it actually has a noticeably higher collector preference due to a "history" affinity. These coins are certainly a lot more common than those I collect but demand trumps scarcity every time.

I've been a collector most of my life but I'm not sure I'd make a good dealer. First, I'd need to learn to grade better. Second, I'd probably overpay at least at first on less desirable coins, not offer enough on good coins, or both. It takes time to build a reputation and make contacts. When South African coinage was my primary interest, I ended up selling most of it through private transactions to obtain more predictable results. I potentially could have realized more just selling on eBay at the time (2009 and 2010), but knowing these collectors helped since there is so little demand for much of what I had in the US. Known sellers (like CRO) can also get prices that someone like me cannot. This also makes a difference in how much to pay and to ask.

Yes, unfortunately. I haven't been to the World's Fair of Money in a long time. It's never in a convenient location.